Abbey Bennett - Village life

Day two in our village of Chamba and it already feels like we've been here for a year. The mountains, the winding roads and the children especially feel familiar and comforting, like they've been apart of our lives for as long as we can remember.
This evening we visited the bustling streets in the city of Chamba. It was truly incredible to watch the people going about their lives and working in their shops. Us girls were taken as a group to the smallest and most cluttered of fabric stores to shop. Piles upon piles of fabric were stacked high along every wall, making it absolutely overwhelming when we knew we had to select just one roll of fabric for our Indian dresses. The colors were AMAZING and endless in number; every shade imaginable was in that tiny shop. We all were in an ecstatic frenzy as we leaned around one another, running our hands over any piece of material we could touch and grasping hurriedly at the bundle we found to our liking.

After every girl had claimed her piece, we all gathered in the street and were led through alleyways to a nearby tailor shop. As we settled in, each girl took out her colorful fabric and admired it while showing it off to the others. As we went around chatting and sharing our purchases, I realized how every girl had selected a fabric that was incredibly similar to her as a person. Overall, it was a successful shopping trip. We can't wait to wear our finished Indian dresses to the Taj Mahal this upcoming week!